Any of our members looking to upgrade your 540 to a 550? We are running a special price of $5499 with the trade-in of your 540. Brand new 550 with a new warranty period. Click this link if you're interested: http://www.avidyne.com/landing/540-to-550-upgrade.asp

Thanks for the offer, could you provide some info regarding the benefits of upgrading? Not just a list of features, but why would I want to upgrade? I've got a IFD540, AXP340, PMA450A, Navomatic 300A, KX155A and steam gauges. I'm looking to upgrade to either the Tru-Trak or Trio AP and would love to install a dual-band ADS-B in receiver that integrates into the 540.

I'm not sure I understand your question brou0040. You want Kelly to give you reasons to upgrade but you don't want her to list features of the IFD550? What else is there for her to say? Are you looking for data on interfaces or something?

I guess I don't understand why anybody would upgrade unless you have a radar or IR camera that you want to use the 550 as a display. The SVS is neat for a moment until you go back to the MAP page - I can't see why people would fly using the SVS page rather than the MAP.

I'm asking what is the functionality that I don't understand, not just the feature list. I'm not sure that is any more clear, but I hope it helps.

Arkvet here has an IFD550, perhaps he will post. He absolutely loves the egocentric SV + attitude display on it. He does not have a PFD, and I think that folks that do not have a PFD, and are ne tplanning to get one soon, could in particular see a real benefit to the IFD550.

It is not just the SV, people often make that mistake when assessing these attitude based display packages.

You also get a real air horizon, and a flight path vector marker, together with attitude information, and the speed and altitude tapes. These are only available in the egocentric IFD550 view only, I don't have that with my 540.

I do have an ASPEN with the "SV" option unlocked, and enjoy all the same on the PFD. How often do I use the SV part of the SV option unlock, virtually never, that isn't the main value to me.

If Avidyne would get the IFD 550 certified to display and replace the primary flight instruments I would jump on it in a second. Just think an all in one box in the pilot side panel not the center stack that provides primary flight information and navigation

If Avidyne would get the IFD 550 certified to display and replace the primary flight instruments I would jump on it in a second. Just think an all in one box in the pilot side panel not the center stack that provides primary flight information and navigation

Not exactly. If the 550 was your primary attitude indication, it would have to be locked onto that screen permanently while in motion. You would have access to the communications radios maybe, but you would not be able to access the flight plan or the auxiliary screens or anything else.

In my opinion, Avidyne made a fatal flaw in the 550 design when they selected a Attitude Reference System (ARS)
instead of an Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS). If they did it had an AHRS, I would have been all of it. Now I will settle with my iPad.

I have the 550. Crazy good SV. If I want to fly my plane 100% off that SV it's easy. If I'm doing that my map / communications / FMS are all running on the IFD 100 app that is panel mounted beside the 550. I do not have to leave the SV page on the 550 for anything.

The biggest plus with the 550 IMHO is that ridiculously good SV. Granted, when I got my 550 I had all vacuum primary instruments. Since then I added a Garmin G5 AI. Comparing the two (as far as attitude situational awareness) isn't fair at all. The 550 absolutely smokes the G5 when it comes to situational awareness, even though it's to the right of the primary scan. Doesn't matter. It's good.

The entire left side of my panel could die and I could fly an instrument approach with ease given my IFD 550. Try that with any other GPS.

*** The only big thing that the IFD 550 lacks IMO is Airspeed. That's on my wish list.

Oh, and FWIW I have an ipad Pro 9.7 that I had used previously with a stratus 2. I used to play with SV on the Ipad / foreflight. I thought it was pretty cool but often questioned it's reliability. Between ipads crashing or getting laggy and worrying about the stratus falling off it's mount I just never got comfortable with the thought of the SV foreflight being a backup to any large degree. Even when it was working as expected I just didn't geel comfortable with it. The IFD 550 SV is exponentially better.

That being said, if you've got an Aspen, G500, Dynon skyview, etc then the value of the 550 over the 540 may not be there.

In my opinion, Avidyne made a fatal flaw in the 550 design when they selected a Attitude Reference System (ARS)
instead of an Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS). If they did it had an AHRS, I would have been all of it. Now I will settle with my iPad.

My shop ran the heading to my IFD550 from my King HSI. That way I get heading plus the Total Velocity Vector on my IFD550 and my IFD100. It was very simple to do.

Regarding Aspen PFD’s, it’s actually a very good idea to have a good backup AI and DG/HSI if you fly behind one since they have a nasty cascading failure flaw. The Aspen PFD will fail it’s AI and HSI if it loses Pitot airspeed input. Very nasty failure problem.

My pitot heater failed in IMC earlier this week and froze up my pitot and lost my ASI. My Aspen then proceeded to failed its AI and HSI one input failure resulted in the loss of three primary instruments. Have a Sandia Quattro backup so that was good but the IFD 550 would have been better than my IFD540. Not happy with Aspen on this. They know about it and are promising a fix but who know when. If you fly behind Aspen email them and ask for the fix. The more that do the faster it will likely come.

If either pitot or your static air leaks (or fails by ice) you will get red Xs. I had to rebuild my alt static valve to correct this problem, no fault of the Aspen package. I’d seriously consider a secondary pilot/static system if you are a hard core IFR warrior and have all your eggs in that basket.

This brings up the same struggle I had right before the 550 was certified. They were offering the 550 upgrade for I believe $5000. Of course to get the 10-2.1 update I need to go to the avionics shop and pay them to do the software upgrade with this it would just be the swap between the units and I get a backup ARS. Decisions Decisions Decisions. I do live and fly in flat land USA so SV is nice but I prefer to look at my map display when flying now.

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